The sky is falling, almost, and she's choking on soot and ash. Really it's just the roof, thick beams crashing to the floor, sending sparks into the air. Beyond that, visible in the holes they've left, is the sky, where it's always been. If she squints she can see stars through the smoke. No sign of ghosts now; she doesn't even know what started the fire, or at least who started the fire. She's relatively certain that the cause was a spark applied to the trails of gasoline clear as water that crossed the floor like snail-tracks. She wonders if ghosts can light matches, can flick lighters, or if the difference in corporeality disallows that.
Right now, she knows, is not the time for that debate.
She can hear Logan shouting, faintly over the crackling of flames, the auditory assault. Something shatters in the distance, a pane of glass breaking like windchimes over the drumbeats of falling metal. He's calling for her, looking for her. She hopes he won't come inside; he should have stayed in the car, where it's warm and dry. After all, she's been in worse situations. She thinks of him listening to his music and watching the fire reflect on the dark water of the bay, and knows there was no way he would have done that, no way he would leave her here. Not that he can do anything to help.
The heat is becoming more than oppressive, dangerous, and she dashes for the door. There's nothing to be gained by waiting, nothing to be found. Any evidence is, literally, going up in smoke. She knows that there is nothing to be saved here.
She feels the heat of the door-handle through her gloves and the scent of charred leather is oddly real against the backdrop of industrial destruction, all the colors of armageddon. She wrenches the door open and throws herself into the night, breathing deeply before she realizes that the air is not fresh; it's just not as smoke-filled as it was inside. It's cold. It's sleeting. If not for the chemical burn, the fire would already be out, she thinks.
She jogs a short distance away, looking for Logan. Is there another way in? Surely he wouldn't have gone in after her, and if he had, she would have noticed, would have heard him enter.
There, the edge of movement disappearing behind the burning building, the swish-rush of wheels through melting snow, smoke-gray ice. Is he going to find her? She knows he's going to look, and she follows him, fighting her way through clouds whose particles tear at her skin, minuscule pieces of glass, slivers of metal.
She rounds the corner in time to see a figure running in the distance, blurred through the haze of smoke and water, fading into the night. Not Logan, though she's sure she saw him come back here.
And suddenly she knows where he is, narrows her eyes as she stares into the infinite depths of the bay, one small piece of the Pacific Ocean. Not all messages-in-bottles wash up onto shore; some are lost forever.
But there, there by the edge, the concrete pier, are ripples, ever-widening. There, where he went under.
Where he was pushed?
She leaps into the water, feels her body carving through air, and then she's cutting through water, blinking at the sudden chill and looking for him through sheets of black. He can't have been under long, she thinks, as though she can will it to be true. And then she spies him, a glimmer of movement below, falling ever farther. She dives after him, one hand reaching out, and she knows that she's going to grasp nothing, that water will slide between her fingers and he will be gone forever.
She clasps an outstretched hand, concrete and real, and pulls, striding for the surface. There is no time to check; all she can do is hope that she is not too late.
It is not, she thinks, enough. Hope never is.
They break the surface and she gasps, hauls him up, lifting him out of the water and shoving him onto the concrete. Something glints in the water and she reaches down, touches cold metal and wants to laugh; of course he could have made it out on his own, if he hadn't been trapped by something he couldn't feel. She treads water, tosses the wheelchair onto the pier and then climbs out herself, looking for the figure she saw earlier.
Nothing but the wail of distant sirens, the crackling of flames and the ricochet of sleet off of the mottled cement. He is, she sees, breathing, a sublime knowledge. He is. He is.
She crouches beside him, pushes ocean-damp hair out of her face and his eyes open, searching. He coughs, braces himself as he sits up, tries to catch his breath. His exhalations are mist in the air. "Max," he says after a moment.
"Yup," she agrees, wrapping her arms around her knees. The wheelchair is on its side a distance away. She will have to retrieve it in a few minutes, but right now, she doesn't think she could touch it.
"The warehouse," he says, crossing his arms. He blinks water from his eyes and she wonders belatedly what's actually in the ocean, whether the bay is currently playing host to any toxic substances.
"Is burning," she says.
"There was a man," he says, looking around as though he expects the man to still be there, watching.
She shrugs, keeps her eyes on the giant bonfire ahead. "I went after you, instead."
"Oh," he says, and she's not sure what to make of his tone. She shudders, suddenly, remembering her dream and how much darker the ocean really is. "We should go," he said. "It's cold." She wants to tell him that he doesn't mind, and then she remembers that he does, that maybe the warehouse isn't providing enough heat, after all. She nods, stands and retrieves his wheelchair.
"There was gas on the floor," she says. "I'm thinking maybe your ghost doesn't like you."
"It was a set-up?"
"Who can resist a good ghost story?" she asks, and she waits by his side. When he's done, she follows him around the warehouse, back to the waiting car.
"We should call someone," he says once they're inside, once the doors are closed. "The fire department."
"I heard sirens," she says. "Probably already on their way. If we wait, they'll wanna know why we were here."
"Right," he says. He starts the car, turns the heater up as high as it will go, casting an apologetic look in her direction. She shrugs and pretends not to notice that he's shivering. When they pull away, she turns to look at the warehouse, flames and smoke and crystal stars above, ancient as time itself.
It's good to be alive, she thinks. The CD skips in the car player and the music stutters. She silences the noise and listens to the sleet on the roof, instead. She closes her fingers over the memory of faint heat and the texture of skin, leans against the head-rest, and he drives.
xxxxx
The shower in the guest room hisses and then there's the thrum of water on tile. He should take a shower, himself; who knows what lurks in the shadowy bay depths. A change of clothes wasn't enough; he still feels the cold water pressing against him, pressing into him. But it's much easier to sit here on the couch, to watch the clear night sky and know that somewhere the smoke is still fading.
And he can't forget what it's like to be drowning, for the world to narrow to one pinprick of light and then nothing at all. Dark and cold and so easy to sleep. It was a set-up, she'd said. Someone had tried to kill him and nearly succeeded. He should start running background checks on all of his informants.
The shower stops and he frowns, glances at his miraculously-still-ticking watch and wonders at the passing of time. Maybe this is shock, though he's certainly been through worse.
A few minutes later and she stands in the doorway, boots in hand, tilts her head and frowns at him. "You have a fever," she says. He raises his eyebrows at her. "Organic version of thermal imaging technology," she explains, coming to sit by him on the couch. She drops her boots with a thud onto the floor, picks one up and loosens the lacing.
"Handy," he says, wondering what she expects him to do. Is it "feed a cold, starve a fever," or the other way around?
"I guess," she says. She finishes tying one boot and begins on the other. "You want soup or something?" she asks with a slight frown. He dares not take her up on the offer.
"Not really hungry," he says. "Just tired."
She bites her lip, something like genuine concern in her eyes. She was able to rescue him from ocean depths, but the mundaneness of a fever is something she hasn't yet learned how to control. "You need anything?" she asks, like she's offering to run down to the corner grocery and buy him orange juice and a crossword-puzzle book. He blinks; it's a pre-Pulse memory and has no place here.
"No," he says. "Just gonna get some sleep."
She nods, stands and places one hand on her hip. "See ya," she says.
"See ya," he echoes. Her hair swirls in the stifling air as she turns to go. When she disappears from his vision he stretches out, limbs like lead, and closes his eyes. He dreams of the cold grasp of hands underwater, a current stronger than electricity, and when he wakes with the taste of smoke fever-hot at the back of his throat, there is a smell which he gradually recognizes as burnt chicken, and rattling in the kitchen. She is there, more real than ghosts.
He sleeps, suspended from reality and confident that it will be there when he awakens.
The End.
"Light is billions of years old by the time we see it. From the beginning of time right past us into the future. Nothing is ancient in the universe." - Mulder